Perception vs. Reality of JIA

American war lords and “intellectual” accomplices of the US-Israeli terrorism complain that there is a “perception across Arab-Muslim world that the great enemy of Islam is JIA –” ” Jews, Israel and America” (Friedman, New York Time, Oct 24, 2004)

In their view, “this wider trend has been fanned by Arab satellite TV stations, which deliberately show split-screen images of Israelis bashing Palestinians and U.S. forces bashing the Iraqi insurgents.”

This presentation of half truths needs fundamental corrections as follows.

1. What the Muslim world is facing is a reality, whereas what the media, academia and political war lords in the US and most of the rest of the world are creating is a perception to cover the reality.

2. There is no independent Arab media. To whatever extent the single station of Al-Jazeera is against the countless other media outlets, it has been thrown out by the puppet Iraqi regime and its broadcasts are conditionally allowed in Canada. Eliminating Al-Jazeera of the images it shows is not the solution. It is no use cursing the images and telecasters of the ongoing bloodbath. The solution lies in holding the enemies of humanity accountable for the unprecedented level of terror they unleash. Coverage of this terror leads to what accomplices of concerned terrorists call a “perception” in the Muslim world.

3. Arabs and Muslims are not two different entities, as Friedman would attempt to give a new twist to the prevailing perception. Arabs are Muslims too and Muslims of all races are as concerned over what is happening in the Middle East as Arabs. There is no place for racism in Islam. Friedman’s separating Arabs from rest of the Muslims speaks of a racist mentality. This separation by Friedman is indicative of desperation to somehow show that other Muslims have no connection whatsoever to whatever is happening in the Middle East.

To further clarify these points, we need to understand that unlike the Muslim world, the media created perception is more important than reality in the US and its few allied nations. This is especially so in politics towards Islam and the Muslim world, where people can be dogged by impressions even when they are completely untrue.

A classic example is the notion that those who stand to US occupations are terrorists; a view still widely held that Muslims know to be false, having suffered through occupations since centuries. Nevertheless, as this idea has taken root, it seems impossible to dislodge. Everything which not-collaborating-Muslims do is interpreted through this prism, magnifying any mistake they make, no matter how small.

Compare this with Paul Revere of the late 1700s, who played a small role in American struggle against British occupation. Paul Revere still glorifies pages of school children books.[1] Interpretation of such a book in Iraq, Palestine or Afghanistan would be a “terrorist’s manual” or a “terrorist’s biography,” assessed from the intentions of Paul Revere who wanted, “the country folk to be up and arm” against the occupiers in "red coats."

Paul Revere was riding to pass on a warning of the impending occupation forces’ attack on Massachusetts (imagine Fallujah, Najaf or any other city in Iraq) but his night journey is presented as “a nation was riding that night.” Bravery of the defiant locals is glorified for how “they gave them [occupiers] ball from ball,” and how they chased “the red coats down the lane…only pausing to fire and load.”

Before going into more practical examples, lets analyse perception and reality and the American war lords’ use of the word perception for reality.

Perception is defined as the act of perceiving, which is "to become aware of directly through any of the senses, especially sight or hearing" which could be right or wrong. On the other hand, reality is defined as "the quality or state of being actual or true".

An analogy may help: the earth was "perceived" to be flat which influenced peoples understanding, beliefs, and behaviors. The "reality" turned out to be something significantly different. In this respect, the pictures and films that the so-called “mainstream” media avoids, and Friedman likes the Muslim media also to avoid, is the reality.

Iraqis, Palestinians, Afghans, Kashmiris and Chechens do not perceive anything. Their dead loved ones are torn to pieces by the US, Israel, Russian and Indian bombs and bullets right before their eyes. It is right to call it their perception?

They find their loved ones incarcerated in concentration camps and tortured to death by 21st century barbarians. Is that a reality or mere perception? What they see encircling them in the form of apartheid wall is not a perception but a reality. They find their countries occupied based on lies upon lies. It is not a perception to them. It is a reality.

And reality leads to real conclusions, one of which is that the US stands behind the Zionist, racist, terrorist Israeli regime. What the war lords mix in this reality is the word Jew to involve everyone with the Zionists. Jews themselves are victims of the Zionists. But limping Jews in a JIA triangle is an attempt to make sure everyone who associate him or herself with Jewish religious beliefs start recognizing Muslims as the enemies. But it is not a reality. It is how the war lords promote perceptions and a great majority of two nations are deluded to the maximum level to which a people can be deluded. These are Americans and Israelis.

To elaborate further, whatever our eyes see and our mind perceives is the reality for us and those things which are perceived similarly by majority are claimed reality. What the Muslim world is facing is the reality. They see reality with bare eyes, in most cases, without even having an opportunity to watch it on what Thomas Friedman curses as “split screen.” The split screen is not stupid. In fact, the suffering Muslim masses don’t need any media pundits to help them form a perception.

That is what is needed in most of the Western world, which is denied of seeing the reality in pictures. They can see golden plumes of carpet bombing in shock and awe missions, but they are not allowed to see what happens on the ground. Instead the Western public is treated with perception-making opinions by the war infected minds.

Remember how the corporate media pushed down our throats film clips of world leaders descending on Madrid with a new sense of global purpose to promise a land for peace deal –” all in an attempt to pave the way for war and sanctions on Iraq in early 1990s. The perception the media tried to create was so obvious: a quiescent world, where crises were in check and global politics seemed driven by a new sense of justice and global purpose after “world leaders” rallied at the Conference to welcome a “peace process” that was never to become a reality.

Remember all such sessions since then: how congenial and happy the “world leaders” were as they posed for a remarkable "we run the world" and other handshake photo sessions captured by the allied media.

Blair tried the same fake mantra of Palestinian state in 2003 while preparing for the Iraq invasion to show he is concerned about the injustice done to Palestinians at the hands of Israeli government. All such attempts were to give media food for fostering and consolidating wrong perceptions.

However, these perceptions have been clashing with much more difficult realities. What Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans and other Muslims face due to direct and indirect occupations signal the reality. But that is always left out, or presented in a way that context is missing and background rarely explained.

The Israel-Palestine Conflagration as we read through New York Times, Newsweek or CNN perception-building reports looks like a battle of opposing armies of the Israelis and the Palestinians. Friedman’s October 24 column is a good example of how the issue has been framed as Arab versus Jew, with the substantial and vocal peace movement in Israel overlooked and Palestinians referred to as fanatics.

In short, American Israeli nexus is a reality which is not hidden in the form of $74,157,600,000 benefits to Israel from U.S. Aid since 1949 (As of November 1, 1997) at the cost of $134,791,507,200 to U.S. Taxpayers.[2] The reality of Israel’s influence can be judged through simple indicators, such as the US support of Israeli terror at the UN and the $34,607,182 given to US congressional leader by pro-Israel PAC from 1978-2000.[3]

In the light of these realities around us, it is not surprising if Iraqis call American soldiers as Jews because many non-Muslims also believe that the US is there for Israel.[4] What is surprising is exonerating America and Israel of their crimes and obscuring the basic realities faced by the Muslim world simply by giving the reality an anti-Jewish flavour.

Of course, if the GIs are unknowingly fighting a war for what a leading Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery calls Jewish supremacists,[5] they would still be considered as such. The GIS don’t know about the blind self that makes them equivalent to Zionists. Iraqis standing in the midst of ruins and speaking with Scott Pelley of CBS News’s "60 Minutes" can hardly understand the difference between mainstream Jews and Zionists. In such qucik snap shots they don’t have time to explain even if they know about such a distinction.

What is important is the horrible reality before their eyes and the people responsible for that. What Mr. Scott Pelley heard is right, but what the war lord, Friedman, presents is a clear example of the way professional propagandists twist reality and gloss over facts.

The preponderance of responsibility does not lie with Arab media, but with the criminals behind the crimes against humanity that are going on without any end in sight. The preponderance of responsibility also lies with the so-called “mainstream” media which continues to obscure the basic realities, and the Muslim media sources such as ARY, GEO, etc, which despite the availability of technology and resources have failed to bring the reality to the living rooms of people in North and Central America.

Muslim media has not developed any anti-US perception in the Muslim world. The US policies and the subsequent barbaric implementation is enough to do this job. Their crime is not to shatter the myths created by the "mainstream" media.

The Muslim media has miserably failed to present the reality to the American public in particular. The results is that Polls in Time and Newsweek show that more than 70 percent of the American public supports Israeli atrocities, and newspaper editorials mostly blame the Palestinian side for all the troubles. The New York Times, as its lead article in Oct 24, 2004 issue reflects, and other media sources continue to simplify the conflict as Arabs against Jews.

If Muslims continued to play dumb on the media front and failed to reach the heart of America, and if the Americans continued to play dumb and allowed the alternative media outlets to be treated like Al-Jazeera, vision of the hidden forces behind US presidents for “liberating” other Muslim states one after the other will probably win by default. If that happens, America and Israel will no longer be bound together tightly against the Muslim world. This would be time for Israel to replace the US as a Ruling State.

[4]. “The real reason for the war against Iraq is very simple. It is the fact that influential Jewish supremacists in Israel and around the world want this war. Israel wants no other nation in the Middle East to challenge their supremacy. Iraq, with the world’s second largest oil reserves has that potential. Israel doesn’t give a damn how much this war will hurt America and the American people. The truth is the war against Iraq is a war against America,” David Duke. http://www.duke.org/ Also see “No war for Israel.” http://www.davidduke.com/radio/transcripts/03052003nowarforisrael.htm

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